No More Puppy Trim
by boredsvunut
Summary: The courtship of Tom and Clary Goodwin, set while Clary is still a Puppy. No spoilers for the plot of either novel, since this is set well before Beka arrives.


Tom watched Clary as she sat on the rim of the fountain, watching the crowds with a wary eye, her fingers tugging at her boot-top idly. Clouds had covered the too-bright noon sun and were threatening rain, and he still held the package his father had sent him to fetch, but somehow it didn't matter.

"Marry me," he said to her, not for the first time. "Come on, Clary. You can't dodge the question forever, can you?"

She swung at him half-heartedly, then leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. "I'll dodge the fool question for as long as I please. As if you don't know the answer well enough as it is."

He sighed and shook his head. "It's no fool question, Clary. I'm serious. You're complainin' of bein' under your mother's roof and my father says it's nigh time I took me a wife. I don't see why not."

"And live on what, once we'd married?" she snapped. "A Puppy's wages? That's hardly enough to feed one, never mind two or more. I'm fit to be no man's wife and you know it, Tomlan Goodwin, you sarden fool. It'd be starve or live with your parents, then."

Tom raised his eyebrows. "'Two or more'?" he repeated, startled. "You mean Miss Clary Wright wants to be a Mama?"

Clary glared at him, her brown eyes flashing. "Don't you look for meanin' where there is none, you looby," she warned him, as he sat alongside her. "My mother was right – you are a fool."

He smiled at her. "And a fool lives in hope, m'dear stubborn Puppy."

She stared at him and then shook her head, agitated. "Once I've no Puppy trim, I'll think about it," she said, finally.

'I'll think about it' was the best answer he'd ever gotten from Clary, in all his asking her over the last year. Tom grinned and swooped down to kiss her, pulling her up with him.

*****

Clary's father set down his tools and turned from the piece in front of him as they entered his well-lit, airy workshop. The master carpenter smiled at them, and wiped his hands on his leather apron. The rough floor in front of him was covered with sawdust, his front spattered with stain and glue.

He was a big, round-faced man – not tall, but broad and wide – who was a favorite of all the little ones who lived nearby. Clary got her dark hair and eyes from him, but her sharp features came from her mother. Easygoing and cheerful, he provided for his family to live well through his work.

"There's my Dog," Master Wright said, the pride in his voice clear to any who listened. He came over to give his eldest child a one-armed hug about the shoulders.

Clary smiled at him, briefly. "I'm no Dog yet," she told her father, "not for another year yet."

"Forever to argue with me," Alon Wright responded, shaking his head. "Hello, Tom."

"How goes it, Master Wright?" Tom clasped the man's large, callused hand in greeting.

"Aye, well enough. I take it I can't call you son-in-law yet?"

Clary frowned and Tom laughed. Their fathers had been friendly for years, and when he'd begun trying to catch Clary's attentions, her father had advised against it, for _Tom's_ sake.

"No. I keep askin' her, Master Wright, but she keeps on telling me no."

Alon ruffled Clary's hair affectionately, his body shaking with held-back laughter. "Now, Clary, what would your Mama make o' that?"

Clary pulled away from him, scowling, and said, "Papa, stop that."

Tom pondered if that was the same voice she used on patrol: the same firm, commanding tone of voice, each word spoken clearly.

"Aye, my wee gixie fancies herself a woman grown, now. Speaking of your Mama, she told me she was wanting to see you, and for me to be telling you that if I was to see you," Alon said, still cheerily good-natured.

Clary looked as if she was a doomed woman bound for the gallows. "You had best go, Tom," she said, leaning up to embrace him. "Mother won't be pleased if she sees you waiting for me."

Alon clapped Tom on the shoulder, a staggering blow. "Young Master Goodwin can stay and talk shop with me," he said, a twinkle in his brown eyes. "I've something his father was a-wanting to see, last guild meeting. Go on with you now, Clary. You know your Mama don't like to wait."

"She likes that about so much as she likes me at Dog's work," Clary replied, as she left the shop, "which isn't any at all."

*****

Clary stopped short as she left the kennel after Watch, upon seeing him. "Tom, what in the Mother's name're you doing here at this hour?" she demanded, over the whoops, whistles, and bawdy suggestions of her fellow Dogs.

"Oh, shut yer gobs, you lot!" came a bellow from within the kennel. "Go home, all of ye, afore I change my mind!'

"Meeting you," Tom responded as the crowd split up, headed in different directions. He attempted to take Clary's leather training bag from her, only to have his hand shoved away. Instead, he tugged on the sleeve of her uniform tunic. "No more Puppy trim, Clary. You said you'd think about it."

"You _are_ a sarden looby, Tomlan Goodwin," Clary snapped, her eyes narrowed. "The sun ain't even up. Go home and go to bed – that's where I'm going. It's too early to be talkin' of that."

"I'mma thinkin' she only insults 'em she likes," quipped another Dog, "so's she must _really_ like Master Goodwin 'ere, eh?"

Clary spun about to glare at the speaker, as the Dogs arriving for the next Watch jeered and whistled their approval. Then she stalked off, headed towards her parents' home and bed. Tom followed, and caught up with her quickly.

"I didn't embarrass you, did I?" he asked, slipping his arm through hers.

"No. Just don't surprise me at this hour," she said, tiredly.

Well, he would, but he thought her reaction would be different, this time.

Before he let her disappear through the door into her parents' home, Tom stopped her and kissed her, gently. "Clary."

She waited, eyebrows raised. "Some of us've been up all night and would like to go to bed," she reminded him, when he didn't respond soon enough.

"Clara," he said, once again, seeing her startle at the use of her full name.

"Didn't I tell you never to call me that?"

"Hush," he scolded, taking one of her hands in his. "Clara, will you do me proud and marry me?"

She dropped her bag and clutched at his hands with both of hers, stunned. "I didn't take you as serious, when you were last askin' me."

"Love, I was serious as that baton you carry. Now, don't you go hittin' me with it."

She grinned at him, as the sky turned pink behind her, as the sun peaked overhead. "I won't, if you don't give me reason to – don't call me 'Clara' ever again.'

"Gods know, you'll make the priestess who weds us call you 'Clary'," Tom complained. "What's the matter with it?"

Clary growled. "I don't like the name. Let it be." Then she shut him up very thoroughly, on the doorstep of the house, startling the neighbors and her father, who had just come down to start work.


End file.
